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MUIRNet News Briefs - 30 July 2005

Ed A. Stevens

NAXJA Member
NAXJA Member
*************************************
California

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Steve Sampson (707) 823-9610

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUV OWNERS INVITED TO EXPLORE "THE LOST COAST"

Saturday, September 17th 2005

SANTA ROSA, CA (July. 07, 2005) - Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV)
and other four-wheel drive owners are invited to participate in a
one-day scenic trek through northern California's beautiful Lost
Coast, Saturday, September 17, 2005.

Hosted by the Wine Country Rock Crawlers 4 wheel drive club of
Sonoma County. This scenic drive will begin in Ft. Bragg, CA, located
on Highway 1 approx. 110 miles north of Santa Rosa. The drive will
commence Saturday morning at 9 AM.

According to Steve Sampson, the tour chairman, the trip doesn't
require any rough four-wheeling but has been designed especially for
families with SUV's who want to take their vehicle out into the
forest on dirt roads to see just how easy it is to drive the
designated roads in our National forests.

"So many people purchase an SUV and never learn just how easy
it is to drive on forest dirt roads." said Sampson, "We are giving
them a chance to drive along with us to a beautiful and remote place
that they most likely would never go by themselves."

Sampson explained that participants would drive the Usal Road,
part of the 1860's stagecoach route between Eureka and San Francisco.
The mountains there thwarted the builders of the California Hwy. 1 in
the 1920's. They gave up trying to build the highway over the rugged
mountains and sent the highway inland to merge with Hwy. 101 leaving
the beautiful & rugged coast "lost".

The drive will start in Ft. Bragg, travel North on Hwy. 1 to
the old Usal Rd. Stops include Usal beach and a trip to Needle Point
and down to Bear Harbor where lunch will be provided and a walk to
the beautiful beach. The day ends at Shelter Cove which is a small,
remote fishing town that sits on a piece of flat land between the sea
and the steep mountains above. The Wine Country Rock Crawlers will
provide an outdoor BBQ dinner for all participants at the Shelter
Cove campground.

Cost of the tour which includes lunch and dinner is $60.00 for
adults. Meals for children 7 to 17 years of age are $15.00 when
accompanied by an adult. Children 6 and under are free. The tour
will have a limit maximum of 30 participant vehicles.

Sampson said that there are accommodations in Ft. Bragg and in
Shelter Cove. The Shelter Cove campground offers tent camping spots
and full RV hookups. No campground reservations are needed.

Sampson noted that any net proceeds will be used to help the
clubs ongoing efforts to keep off highway vehicle areas open to the
public.

To request an information flyer or registration application,
contact Steve Sampson
(707) 823-9610 or email [email protected] or go to
www.winecountryrockcrawlers.org

###

*************************************
California

http://www.co.san-bernardino.ca.us/Sheriff/voluntrs/Units/SAR/Sar218/SAR218_1.htm

The Morongo Basin Search and Rescue have announced plans for their
26th annual Desert Run fund raiser event. This year's run will held
on Saturday, October 1-2, 2005. Registration and Base Camp are open
on Friday and brochures with the entry form are available by
contacting their web site at the above link or by contacting Arden
Wiltshire at 760-366-4175 or by email at [email protected].

Arden Wiltshire
Desert Run Coordinator
San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department , Morongo Basin Station


*************************************
Forest Service

The Forest Service has issued a report covering "Off-Highway Vehicle
Recreation in the United States, Regions and States: A National
Report from the National Survey on Recreation and the Environment
(NSRE)

http://www.fs.fed.us/recreation/programs/ohv/OHV_final_report.pdf

(excerpt from the introduction......)

This Report
This report was prepared for the Forest Service's National OHV Policy
& Implementation Teams. The source of data is the National Survey on
Recreation and the Environment (NSRE). The data used in this report
from the NSRE were collected between the fall of 1999 through late
2004. More about the NSRE can be found at this web site,
www.srs.fs.fed.us/trends. As the reader will note, detailed results
from the NSRE describing off-highway vehicle users can be found in
the Appendices to this report (reader, please note that wording . We
chose to put the more detailed results in appendices to reduce the
number and length of data tables in the main body of this report. The
focus of this report is on off-highway driving of motor vehicles.
Wording of the question in the NSRE referred to "off-road" driving
because this is how the activity was phrased in previous NSRE
surveys. For this report we will consider off-highway and off-road to
be the same. The NSRE is a collaborative project between the Forest
Service (Research and Development and Strategic Planning and Resource
Assessment Offices), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
the University of Georgia and the University of Tennessee. Other
agencies also are partners in sponsoring the NSRE.

Off-Highway Vehicle Issues

The July 15, 2004, Forest Service draft rule regarding management of
motorized vehicle use has increased attention on where and how
off-highway vehicle (OHV) recreation occurs and is offered. As public
land managers are tasked with the responsibility of examining and
implementing clear and consistent agency policy, understanding who
the OHV recreationists are has become ever more important. Currently
there is considerable concern about cross-country travel by motorized
vehicles on the National Forests and on other public lands of this
country. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth has noted that unmanaged
recreation, including OHV use, is one of the top four threats to the
health of national forests. The growing use of motor vehicles is
prompting the Forest Service to revise its management of this use so
that the agency can continue to provide opportunities desired by the
public, while sustaining National Forest System lands.

Off-highway vehicles are popularly defined as 1) 4-wheel drive jeeps,
automobiles, or sport utility vehicles; 2) motorcycles designed for
off-highway use; 3) all-terrain vehicles, better known as ATVs and
other specially designed off road motor vehicles used in a wide
variety of ways. Although some observers and organizations include
snowmobiles in their broad definition of OHVs, they are not included
as OHVs for the purposes of this report, even though the NSRE has
collected data specifically addressing this widely population
motorized activity. Further, it is recognized that OHVs are used
frequently for business, commuting, and other work-related reasons,
particularly those in the 4-wheel drive category of OHV types. This
report, however, focuses only on the recreational uses of OHVs. The
best way to ascertain and estimate population-wide recreational use
of OHVs is through a general population survey such as the National
Survey on Recreation and the Environment. Although a person may own
an OHV for many purposes, the NSRE asks the question directly whether
an individual drove a 4-wheel drive, ATV, or motorcycle off-highway
for recreation within the past year.


--
John Stewart
Director, Environmental Affairs
United Four Wheel Drive Associations, http://www.ufwda.org
Natural Resource Consultant
California Association of 4 Wheel Drive Clubs, http://www.ca4wdc.com
Recreation Access and Conservation Editor, http://www.4x4wire.com
Moderator, MUIRNet - Multiple Use Information Resource Network
 
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